Commemorating the migration of Quakers from Perquimans County to the Northwest Territories during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, individuals donned their best Quaker costumes and hopped on their horses or into their horse-drawn buggies and wagons to participate in the Friends to Freedom Wagon Train that traveled through Perquimans County from March 17th to 20th in 2011.
The first two days of the event were set aside for riding the planned 25 mile trail. They started their journey at the Newbold-White House campsite, making stops in Beech Springs, Belvidere, Bagley Swamp, and Winfall. In Belvidere, around 400 people came out to celebrate the train with vendors, live entertainment, wagon rides, food, and promotion of the area’s historical homes and buildings.
On the last leg of the journey, the Train took the Causeway and historic S bridge to parade through Hertford before finally coming back to the Newbold-White House. The final day of the event ended with breakfast, a church service, and a driving course competition at the Newbold-White House site.
Thanks to our partners at Perquimans County Library and our staff at our Elizabeth City State University location, a brand new batch of the Perquimans Weekly issues have now been uploaded! The Perquimans Weekly has served Hertford and the surrounding area since 1934, posting every Wednesday for almost a hundred years. This batch spans from 2004 to 2009, and is the newest in a series of uploads that stretches back to the paper’s first year.
As a weekly local paper, Perquimans Weekly contained a strong focus on local events, people, and stories. These papers are full of reports on local school sports, editorials and opinion pieces on county politics, and advertisements for annual festivals. There’s also a focus on stories occurring on a state and even national level: reporters pay special mind to the 2008 election cycle, and the effects of the 2008 financial crisis can be felt throughout the period.
Still, these issues of Perquimans Weekly reflect the joy of life in Hertford. Reporters describe children going on ghost tours during Halloween, the Lady Tigers’ vollyball victories, and the meetings of the Chrome Pony Mustang Club. These articles reflect the many facets of life in the area, providing context for how Hertford has changed (yet stayed the same) throughout the decades.
This upload brings NC Digital one step closer to having a comprehensive database of the Perquimans Weekly’s entire record. You can read through NC Digital’s collection here, get up to date issues at the Perquimans Weekly website here, or visit the Perquimans Public Library website here.
From the June 24, 1999 issue of The Perquimans Weekly.
This year, the arrival of summer has brought another batch of The Perquimans Weekly newspaper from Hertford, N.C. These papers are available thanks to our partner, the Perquimans County Library, and thanks to our staff at our Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) location, who digitized them. This batch expands the digital availability of The Perquimans Weekly into the 21st century with issues from 1994-2003.
A few photos taken of ducks at the Perquimans River in a May 1984 article
New issues from The Perquimans Weekly are now digitized and online on DigitalNC, courtesy of our partner, the Perquimans County Library, part of the Pettigrew Regional Library. Published out of Hertford, NC, the newspaper services Hertford, Belvidere, New Hope, Winfall, and other local areas. While our collection previously contained issues from 1934-1977, these new issues increase our collection with new material from 1944-1989.
An article about the Olympic Festival Torch passing through Hertford
As a weekly published newspaper, The Perquimans Weekly was often full of local headlines, political developments in the county, and municipal updates. There were often important state and national updates included, too. In 1987, as North Carolina was celebrating its 400th anniversary, it was also holding the U.S. Olympic Festival in the Piedmont region. At this time, people carried the Olympic Festival Torch from Wilmington to Raleigh, passing through Perquimans County that July. Around 100 citizens looked at the torch as it passed through Hertford, and local figures, including the County Manager and the Executive Director of the local Chamber of Commerce spoke and celebrated it at a local program.
We’ve worked with a new partner, Perquimans County Library (part of the Pettigrew Regional Library), to share over 40 years’ worth of The Perquimans Weekly newspaper online. Published out of Hertford, N.C., The Perquimans Weekly includes news from Hertford, Belvidere, New Hope, Winfall and other local towns. Issues from 1934-1977 are now DigitalNC.
Interesting issues that caught our eye include the August 26, 1938 issue, which describes the opening of a bridge spanning Albemarle Sound. There was a huge parade and celebration of “new activity, new life, new contacts” brought by the bridge.
Headline from August 26, 1938 issue of The Perquimans Weekly
We also saw a few articles recognizing Perquimans native and Major League baseball player Jim “Catfish” Hunter, like one from October 26, 1972 covering Jimmy Hunter Day.
The ongoing restoration of the Newbold-White House, which dates from 1730 and is one of the oldest historic houses in North Carolina still standing, was a multi-year project that involved fundraising and promotion. In the Weekly, we found articles describing the house’s nomination for the National Register, the local Restoration Association’s successful drive to fund its restoration, and ongoing coverage of the restoration work, including the making of the shingles.
Excerpt from the November 28, 1974 issue of The Perquimans Weekly
This is the first community paper nominated from the far northeast corner of the state and we hope to hear from more institutions in that area. You can search The Perquimans Weekly together with many other titles on our Newspapers collection page.
The following microfilmed newspapers were selected for digitization in 2017-2018. Thanks to supplemental funding from the State Library of North Carolina, we were able to complete more reels than in previous years. Reels were chosen from nominations according to our Criteria for Selecting Newspapers to Digitize from Microfilm.
This week we have another 61 titles up on DigitalNC, including our first additions from Charleston, Culler, Red Springs, Rutherfordton, and Sanford! Included in this batch, on the front page of the February 28, 1872 issue of Raleigh’s Weekly Sentinel, is an article detailing the final heist of Robeson County folk hero Henry Berry Lowry.
Portrait thought to be of Henry Berry Lowry. Via the State Archives of North Carolina
Henry Berry Lowry, a Lumbee Native American, was the head of the mostly Native outlaw group known as the Lowry Gang. In addition to typical outlaw activities, the Lowry Gang also helped other Native Americans avoid Confederate work conscription and fought alongside Union soldiers who had escaped Confederate prison camps. While Lowry did often resort to murder to settle personal feuds, he was also considered a sort of Robeson “Robin Hood.” When they committed robberies, they would often share the spoils with the community and would return items such as horses as soon as they were no longer needed. They were known to be “respectful” robbers and would let you off the hook if you could show you didn’t have much.
The Weekly Sentinel, February 28, 1872
In 1869, governor William Holden put a $12,000 bounty on Lowry’s head, which resulted in bloody conflict over the next few years. After successfully evading capture, Lowry planned his final heist in February of 1872. The gang stole a safe from a local carriage manufacturer and were bold enough to take another from the sheriff’s office, walking away with $22,000 (about $520,000 today) and then he disappeared. The bounty was never collected and he was never heard from again. Some locals claim they saw him at a friend’s funeral years later, but we will likely never know what happened to Henry Berry Lowry.
Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.
If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.
The headline in The Daily Advance announcing the sudden death of the 29th President of the United States.
Over 1300 issues of Elizabeth City’s daily newspaper–The Daily Advance, provided by our partner, Pasquotank County Library, are now digitized. These issues span the time period from 1923-1927, and as indicated by the paper’s name, were published every day except Sundays. The Daily Advance was founded in 1911 and continues to be published online and in print. Elizabeth City is located in Pasquotank County on the North Carolina coast. Currently the paper also covers Currituck, Camden, Perquimans, and Chowan counties.
During the 1920s The Daily Advance covered both national and local news including politics, the economy, and other stories of note. The paper provides a lens to see the nation during the roaring ’20s through the view of coastal North Carolinians. The introduction of new products and industries, dramatic political events, shifts cultural norms, and changing role of the media can be seen in this local paper.
To browse through issues of The Daily Advance, click here. To see more materials from Pasquotank County Library, take a look at their partner page or visit their website.
New women’s fashion trends discussed in the September 14, 1925 issue of The Daily Advance
Several yearbooks from the North Carolina Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill are now on DigitalNC. The yearbooks include: Richard J. Reynolds High School and its predecessors Winston City High School and Winston-Salem City High School, 1910-1931; Gastonia High School, 1922; Fayetteville High School, 1923; Chapel Hill High School, 1925-1964, New Bern High School, 1927; Perquimans County High School, 1927; and 1964-1968 yearbooks from J.W. Ligon High School, a former Black high school that is now Ligon Middle School in Raleigh, N.C.
The 1931 issue of The Black and Gold from RJ Reynolds High School warrants a special mention. That year’s staff had very ambitious illustrators, as every student’s photo is accompanied by a humorous caricature that offers a hint (albeit a slightly insulting one) at the student’s personality. Clubs and societies receive similar treatment. The yearbook also reveals that the school received a visit that year from Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, a polar explorer and aviator, thanks to the school’s Fine Arts Foundation. View Admiral Byrd’s letter to the school and the many fine caricatures here.
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This blog is maintained by the staff of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center and features the latest news and highlights from the collections at DigitalNC, an online library of primary sources from organizations across North Carolina.
